Pixel Scroll 4/5/17 We Were Somewhere Around Barstow When The Pixels Began To Take Hold

(1) YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GONNA GET. I appreciate the irony in the first line of Germain Lussier’s io9 post “The New Dune Movie Is Being Written By the Man Who Wrote Forrest Gump”:

But we don’t think that should worry you.

According to Lussier, Eric Roth, who won an Oscar for his adapted screenplay for Forrest Gump, has been hired to adapt the Frank Herbert novel Dune for director Denis Villeneuve.

(2) NEW AFRICAN SF AWARD. Since the Hugo announcement date was only known a few days ahead of time, the African Speculative Future Society may not have known that April 4 was a less-than-optimum date to announce the inaugural 2017 Nommos shortlist.

The categories are:

The Ilube Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African  – 1000 USD prize,

The Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novella by an African – 500 USD

The Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Short Story by an African – 500 USD

The Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Graphic Novel by Africans – 1000 USD to be shared.

The award website says —

We have welcoming and inclusive definition of who is an African that includes children of an African parent. Read more about eligibility here.

The award has been funded for four years, by Mr Tom Ilube.

“Science fiction is important because it looks ahead to African futures.  Fantasy and fiction based on traditional tales are important because they link us back to our forebears.  Both are important for African development.  I wanted to make sure that the explosion of African science fiction gets the recognition it deserves.”  Mr Tom Ilube.

The first award ceremony will be held at Aké Festival in Nigeria, November 2017. After that they hope to alternate the location of the awards ceremony between West and East Africa.

Here are links to the Short List and the rest of the nominees in all 4 categories:

(3) OLD OPERA HAS NEW ACTS. Cora Buhlert couldn’t find what she liked 20 years ago, but there’s enough good stuff now for her to be writing about “The Space Opera Resurgence”.

I didn’t like any of those books. But I was an SF fan and a space opera fan and this was all the space opera there was, with very few exceptions (mostly published by Baen Books, which are notoriously difficult to find in Europe). So I kept trying the highly regarded New Space Opera of the early 2000s, until I found myself standing in the local Thalia store, the latest offering of New British Space Opera subgenre in hand (it was this one – I remember the cover very clearly), when I suddenly dropped the book to the floor and exclaimed, “Why do I keep buying this shit? I don’t even like these books.” So I turned my back on New British Space Opera and on science fiction altogether (I did put the book back on the shelf first) and read other genres for a few years, until I came back in a roundabout way via urban fantasy and science fiction romance and found a whole universe of SFF books that weren’t on the radar of the official genre critics at all.

Now, some ten to fifteen years later, there is a lot more space opera on the shelves than back in the early 2000s. It’s also a lot more diverse the than just pale Banks clones. Nor is it just written by white, overwhelmingly British dudes – indeed, some of the best space opera of today is written by women and writers of colour. And even some of those authors whose novels almost put me off science fiction altogether some ten years ago are writing much more enjoyable works these days. …

(4) MAIL CALL. It’s not easy to get letters from the year 1962 unless you’re The Traveler. Galactic Journey today unveiled – “[April 5, 1962] Pen Pals (Letter Column #1)”. The first missive comes from University of Arizona student Vicki Lucas….

Of course, to pay the tuition and room & board, I also take in ironing, do tutoring, deliver newspapers, etc., and they helped me get a student loan. It’s been a real eye-opener to go to school here. Now I know what “scholarship” means. At the University of Arizona, from which I transferred last year, I did have some great learning experiences, but nothing as rich as this.

Not that I didn’t have some great experiences at UA, meeting an English Professor who is an avante-garde composer (Barney Childs), and since I worked in the Fine Arts College I went to most concerts & saw the harpsichord played for the first time (double keyboard!) & heard Barney’s music played. (I admit, I have a crush on him — see the enclosed photo.) And then I’ve been to San Francisco & seen jazz trumpeter Miles Davis & a lot of other stuff….

(5) CAMESTROS FELAPTON EXPLAINS IT ALL TO YOU. Thank goodness somebody can. In  “Hugo 2017: How to vote for best series” he looks at 8 different approaches to dealing with the vastness of the Hugo nominated series. Sure, 8 is also a lot — just be grateful he didn’t try to match the number of ways Cyrano described his nose.

The issue is that Best Series is not unlike Best Editor Long Form – the normal way of voting in the Hugo Awards doesn’t work (read the relevant stuff and vote). However, unlike Best Editor Long, best series at least has accessible information and works. The problem is that it is way too much volume of stuff to evaluate if you haven’t already been following the series in question. So here are some approaches to choose from.

(6) CHOP CHOP. Shouldn’t Wolverine co-creator Len Wein be getting a cut of this?

A medical clinic in the Philippines is using an unusual mascot to advertise its circumcision service: claw-bearing X-Men super hero Wolverine.

The advertisement for Dionisio M. Cornel Memorial Medical Center in Antipolo features an image of Hugh Jackman as the adamantium-clawed character he played in the X-Men and Wolverine films next to text promoting the clinic’s circumcision service.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSRvd73lmN4/

(7) RED ALERT. At Nerd & Tie Trae Dorn wants to know “What the Heck is Even Happening With AnachroCon Right Now?”

The Atlanta, GA based convention AnachroCon might be more aptly named “AnarchoCon” these days. Earlier this week the convention’s Chair and legal counsel Sarah Avraham stepped down in what sounds like an extremely complicated situation.

In a public Facebook post Avraham detailed the reasons for her departure, and while you should really read that post in its entirety, I’ll do my best to summarize it. It starts when Avraham was approached by William and Cindy MacLeod in the spring of 2016 to take over the event in an attempt to rehabilitate the convention’s image and get it back on track financially.

Because man, this con needed help….

(8) ON HOLD. Nerd & Tie is also reporting that “One Month After Cancellation, Multiple Parties Still Waiting For Refunds From Lebanon MEGA Con:.

This last weekend would have been the second annual Lebanon MEGA Con, if the Missouri based convention hadn’t announced its cancellation just one month before. While organizer Will Peden did say that everyone owed money would be paid, some parties are waiting for those promises to be fulfilled.

(9) TODAY IN FUTURE HISTORY

  • April 5, 2063 — The day the Vulcans landed. According to Memory-Alpha:

First Contact Day was a holiday celebrated to honor both the warp 1 flight of the Phoenix and first open contact between Humans and Vulcans on April 5, 2063 in Bozeman, Montana

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born April 5, 1917 — Robert Bloch

I recognize Bob Tucker on the left. Who is the woman on the right? The photo is from a 1959 party in Chicago.

(11) DELIBERATIONS CONTINUE. The Shadow Clarke Jury carries on a discussion of the books they’d like to see considered for the Clarke award.

It does not seem surprising that reading Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K, in which an estranged son accompanies his tycoon father to the threshold of his journey into eternity, brought those memories of Cold Lazarus especially rushing back. Straddling the millennium, both [Dennis] Potter’s final teleplays and DeLillo’s sixteenth novel have a leached-out, end-times quality that puts human mortality centre stage and refuses to look away. That Potter’s scripts – almost a quarter-century old now and written while SF was still very much a pariah literature – leap naked into the science fictional abyss, while DeLillo’s novel appears to negate, to brush aside the very notion of science fiction altogether, seems just one further irony.

Imagine a table laden with all the food you can think of; things you like and things you don’t like; cuisines from all around the world; the fresh and the fast; three thousand calorie freak-shakes next to organic kale salads; dessert piled on top of nachos sitting on a bed of pears. The table is groaning, under the physical and the metaphorical weight of the feast.  It’s wonderful and disconcerting and a bit horrifying and deliciously tempting at the same time.  This is the gastronomic equivalent of Cathrynne M. Valente’s Radiance, a virtuoso outpouring of language, style, trope and intertext fit to overwhelm any appetite. It took close to a week for me to sit down and start this review after I finished the book; I needed that long to digest it.  If you like your novels spare or clean this one probably isn’t for you.

His claim directly addresses the central conceit of the novel that the networks and routes by which African-American slaves escaped to the free states and the North exists as an actual underground railroad with stations and steam locomotives on rails. However, his mistake lies in imagining that the workings of the railroad can be reduced to information as legible as a map and a timetable. Earlier in the novel, when Cora visits this particular ‘ghost tunnel’ for the first time with the railroad operative, Royal, she reflects that the necessary secret of the railroad is not a bad type of secret but rather an intimate part of the self that is central to personal identity: ‘It would die in the sharing.’ The enigma of the railroad, as Royal observes, is that ‘it goes everywhere, to places we know and those we don’t’. The challenge it presents is not to classify it as a system of knowledge but to figure out both how it connects the different selves who use it and where it might lead to.

The Man Who Spoke Snakish is easily the least traditionally science fictional of my shortlist selections: not only does it feature no rockets, but it’s set firmly in the past (and is more about pasts than futures) and it includes talking snakes and something very much like a dragon. In the sense that science fiction is defined by the presence or absence of received ideas and familiar imagery—that is, using the least science fictional definition of science fiction—it would not be considered science fiction.

(12) A LITTLE SMACK. Fusion says justice has been served – “Black Panther and Ms. Marvel Nominated for Hugo Awards Days After Marvel VP Blamed Them for Sales Slump”.

On Tuesday morning, the finalists for the 2017 Hugo Awards (the Oscars of sci-fi and fantasy writing) were announced by the World Science Fiction. Unsurprisingly, collected volumes of Marvel’s critically acclaimed Black Panther and Ms. Marvel series were both nominated for Best Graphic Story.

These nominations come just days after Marvel’s Vice President of Sales, David Gabriel, went out of his way to blame Marvel’s lagging sales on comics—like Black Panther and Ms. Marvel—starring people of color and women. Suffice it to say that the optics of this whole thing don’t reflect well on the publisher, but the Hugo nominations send a telling message to Marvel about just how the public actually feels about its “diverse books.” 

(13) REACTION POST. Abigail Nussbaum catalogs all the emotions she’s feeling after seeing the 2017 Hugo shortlist, beginning with happiness about her Best Fan Writer nomination, and continuing down the spectrum til she reaches —

Frustration, because the puppies’ ongoing presence on the ballot, even under extremely reduced circumstances, means that it continues to be impossible to talk about the nominees as their own thing, rather than a reaction to an attempted fascist takeover.  There’s a lot to praise about this year’s ballot, including the continued shift towards a more diverse slate of nominees, but in the short fiction categories in particular, the Hugo has once again thrown up a fairly middle-of-the-road selection.  Most of these stories aren’t bad, but quite a few of them are meh, and it would be nice to once again be able to have a proper discussion of that.  Instead, we’re all still in bunker mode, still cheering the fact that publishable fiction was nominated for the genre’s most prestigious award, which increasingly seems like a low bar to clear.

(14) PUPPY ANTENNAE ACTIVATED. Cora Buhlert sets things in context and delivers a thorough set of first impressions about the Hugo ballot.

The best novel category looks excellent. We have the sequels to two previous Hugo winners in the category, Death’s End by Liu Cixin and The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin respectively. We have the long awaited and critically acclaimed debut novels by two accomplished short fiction writers, All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders and Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee respectively. We have a highly acclaimed debut novel with a very unique voice, Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer, as well as the sort of sequel to 2014’s highly acclaimed debut novel with a unique voice, A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. A Closed and Common Orbit, Too Like the Lightning and Ninefox Gambit were also on my ballot, and I’m looking forward to reading the remaining three. And those who worry that science fiction is about to die out and be swamped by fantasy, which will inevitably lead to the collapse of the West or something, will be pleased that four of the six nominees in this category are unabashedly science fiction. The Obelisk Gate is an edge case, while the only clear fantasy novel is All the Birds in the Sky and even that one has a mad scientist character. Diversity count: 4 women, 2 men, 3 writers of colour, at least 3 LGBT writers, 1 international writer in translation, 0 puppies.

(15) TUESDAY’S HUGO NEWS. H.P. at Every Day Should Be Tuesday features a picture of a dog in his more Puppy-sympathetic coverage of the 2017 Hugo Awards finalists.

… I am very gratified to see Cixin Liu back where he belongs Death’s End a finalist for Best Novel.  I loved it, as you can probably tell by my overenthusiastic review.  I thought The Dark Forest was robbed, and I voted for The Three-Body Problem as the Best Novel two years ago.  I would have loved to have seen the entire series go up for an award, but oh well.  It perhaps says something about the incestual nature of the Hugo voting that the two books in the series edited by the popular Ken Liu were finalists, and the one that wasn’t didn’t even finish in the top 15 nominations….

The Rageaholic was a finalist last year, but I only saw my first few videos within the last month or so.   And for the most part, I have no interest in watching his videos on video games or movies or politics.  If only for the main reason I don’t watch many YouTube videos or listen to many podcasts.  I ain’t got time for that stuff.  But Razorfist has an encyclopedic knowledge of comics and Elric of Melnibone.  And he’s got a great shtick.  Usually in black-and-white, decked out in mirrored sunglasses and a leather jacket, long hair, wall covered in posters behind him.  Complete with some metal thrown-in to start and finish things off, and a rapid-fire, eloquent, profane delivery.

H.P. also identifies himself as a contributor to the Castalia House blog.

(16) HUGO BY OSMOSIS. The nominations have inspired J.D. Brink’s latest theory.

And John Picacio has been nominated for best professional artist.  I’m pretty darn sure (though not 100%, mind you) that he and I shared a day at Dragon’s Liar comics in San Antonio signing stuff on Free Comic Book Day a few years ago.  We sat right next to each other.

So by sheer proximity, I should be getting a Hugo award, if not this year, than next year

(17) IF I WERE A RICH MAN. Who knew I wouldn’t have to wait til I made a million dollars before seeing my name in Forbes? They published the Hugo nominees.

(18) MOST IMPORTANT CATEGORY. Jude Terror’s account of the nominations for Bleeding Cool is intentionally myopic: “Marvel And Image Split Hugo Awards Comics Category, Shut Out Other Publishers”.

Worldcon has released the finalists for the 2017 Hugo Awards, the science fiction and fantasy awards named after Amazing Stories founder Hugo Gernsback. We’re pretty sure that’s the book Spider-Man first appeared in. In true snooty comics website fashion, we’ll only talk about the things that relate to comic books and ignore everything else.

First, in the most important category, Best Graphic Story (that’s fancy-speak for comics), nominees included Marvel’s Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, and The Vision, two of the most successful and acclaimed books the likes of which Marvel “has heard” people don’t want anymore, and one written by a guy who “rode off into the sunset.” Monstress, Paper Girls, and Saga from Image took the other three slots, shutting out all other publishers. Shockingly, no prominent editors from the superhero comics community earned nominations in any of the editorial categories, though Sana Takeda, a familiar name to comics readers, did move the needle with a spot on Best Professional Artist list.

Dan Slott failed to secure a nomination in Best Fan Writer despite writing some of the most acclaimed Doctor Who fan fiction around in Silver Surfer, though Doctor Who’s Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, was nominated under the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category, which is a fancy way of saying “TV show.” Yes, we know we’re breaking out “only talk about comics” rule, but what could be more “comics website” than that?! Sir Robert Liefeld’s greatest creation, Deadpool, earned a nomination in the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) category, which is a fancy way of saying “movie.”

(19) VIRTUAL VISON. “Astronomers just turned on a planet-size telescope to take a picture of a black hole”Vox has the story. (No, not that Vox.)

Every image you’ve seen of a black hole is an illustration. A giant “virtual” telescope may change that….

We’ve never seen a direct image of a black hole. But if an audacious experiment called the Event Horizon Telescope is successful, we’ll see one for the first time.

Why we’ve never seen an image of a black hole

The biggest problem with trying to detect a black hole is that even the supermassive ones in the center of galaxies are relatively tiny.

“The largest one in the sky [is] the black hole in the center of the Milky Way,” Dimitrios Psaltis, an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona, said in 2015. “And taking a picture of it would be equivalent to taking a picture of a DVD on the surface of the moon

(20) THAT REVOLUTIONARY NEW IDEA FOR SELLING BOOKS. The Verge has another Amazon bookstore on its radar screen – it will be the third in New York.

Amazon has confirmed plans to open a brick-and-mortar bookstore across from the Empire State Building, bringing its total number of announced but as-of-yet unopened stores in New York City up to three.

Publisher’s Weekly reports that a sign reading “Amazon Books Coming Soon” has gone up in the 34th Street storefront, adding that an Amazon rep said the store will open this summer. The store has also been added to the Amazon Books website. This would presumably make it Amazon’s second store in New York. A location in Columbus Circle’s Time Warner Center (just off of Central Park) was announced in January, with the intent to open this spring.

Another, in Hudson Yards, the still-under-construction $20 billion shopping and luxury residential complex on Manhattan’s far west side, was widely reported last summer — with plans to launch alongside the rest of the development’s new stores in 2018 or 2019.

(21) CUTTING EDGE. Here’s the King Arthur: Legend of the Sword final trailer. The film will be out May 12.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, and Mark-kitteh for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

158 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/5/17 We Were Somewhere Around Barstow When The Pixels Began To Take Hold

  1. Camestros Felatpon: The first mention of a “pounded” title (which was soon followed by comments naming Tingle) was by Nick Mamatas in April 2015. VD was also participating in comments at the time and I agree with you that it wouldn’t be a surprise if this was the where he learned about Chuck Tingle.

  2. Kurt Busiek comments There was a point that it was, when the sales of trades were lower and slower, but nowadays they take into account all publishing revenue streams, including trades and digital.

    Several of the comics sites that dissect, err, discuss sales of Vertigo, DC and Marvel have noted that such imprints as Vertigo make far more off trade sales than they do off single issue sales. I’m certainly note the only one who bought such titles as Fables when they came out in trade paper.

  3. From the HOW TO SPOT A REVERSE TWIN website:

    Never forget, the most powerful way to stop devils and scoundrels in this timeline is to PROVE LOVE EVERY DAY. Use this as a reminder and prove love in some small way in your daily life. Pick up the phone and call your family or friends just to tell them you care about them and that they mean so much to you. Help pick up some trash around your neighborhood. Let someone go ahead of you in line. As REVERSE TWINS pour in from other timelines, we can do our part to make this timeline FULL OF LOVE FOR ALL, and the power to do that is in your hands with every choice that you make! YOU ARE SO POWERFUL AND IMPORTANT, AND YOU ARE THE BEST IN THE WHOLE WORLD AT BEING YOU! USE THIS POWER TO MAKE LOVE REAL!

    No, Chuck Tingle didn’t make me tear up a little.

    I’m not crying, you’re crying.

    *sniffle*

  4. Chuck Tingle: crying about ethics in basement dwelling

    Okay, while I’ve had great appreciation for the way Tingle has trolled the Puppies, I wasn’t necessarily thrilled that he made the Fan Writer list.

    I have now changed my mind. With this additional website, Tingle’s body of fandom-related work has reached what I consider critical mass. 😀

  5. Several of the comics sites that dissect, err, discuss sales of Vertigo, DC and Marvel have noted that such imprints as Vertigo make far more off trade sales than they do off single issue sales.

    It’s true, though that’s not merely due to trade sales of the books being published in single issues currently, but because Vertigo has a rich backlist that continues to sell — SANDMAN, PREACHER, Y THE LAST MAN, etc. 25 years of backlist means a lot, if it’s the right backlist.

    I’m certainly not the only one who bought such titles as Fables when they came out in trade paper.

    Heh. I bought FABLES as individual issues, bought the trades, and am still buying it as the Deluxe hardcovers trickle out. Love that book.

    I wish Bill and Mark were doing some new longform series Right Now.

  6. Greg Hullender writes: It’s discouraging that so many people can’t wrap their minds around the idea that it’s not about who or what the author is. The pups are famous for this

    No, they are not.

    They are infamous for trying to use co-ordinated slate voting to win Hugos for shit written by their friends and associates.

    They are not at all confused about this, or in any doubt, or unable to wrap their minds around the idea that the Hugos are there to be stolen.

    By black haired, steely-eyed, suitably thewed Galway girls, obviously.

  7. Mike Glyer on April 6, 2017 at 2:30 pm said:
    Camestros Felatpon: The first mention of a “pounded” title (which was soon followed by comments naming Tingle) was by Nick Mamatas in April 2015. VD was also participating in comments at the time and I agree with you that it wouldn’t be a surprise if this was the where he learned about Chuck Tingle.

    Wow, that’s even earlier than I thought. Nick Mamatas – proving love is real!

  8. It’s two years later, and I still don’t know what Brian actually wanted to achieve, or why we kept on trying to find out.

  9. I’ve had a bit of podcast listening time in the last couple of weeks, the first for ages, so yesterday I got to start on the finalists. I’d listened to some Tea and Jeopardy before, but I’d forgotten just how delightful it is: a really fun concept, good production values, and most importantly Emma Newman is a great interviewer who gets guests chatting away merrily on fun topics – I heard Kate Elliot talking about canoeing, and Zen Cho expounding on her theory of how lawyers are really wizards.
    I’d never tried Ditch Diggers, which is Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace and guests chatting away about writing. It’s more of a boisterous bar conversation than a carefully planned interview, but I really liked the way the hosts bounce off each other and generally have a fun time. I listened to episodes with Fran Wilde and Kameron Hurley. It’s clearly aimed at an audience of writers, and although I found it interesting I can’t see myself listening to it on a regular basis, but if you’re a writer then I can totally see why you’d love it and it’s a worthy nominee.
    So that’s Tea and Jeopardy at the top of my list so far. I think the other one I’ve never listened to anything from is Fangirl Happy Hour.

  10. “No, they are not.

    They are infamous for trying to use co-ordinated slate voting to win Hugos for shit written by their friends and associates.”

    They are actually infamous for both that AND constantly arguing for persons instead of works.

  11. As it happens, it was the Nominee Diversity rule that kept more than two episodes of the same series from being on the BDP Short ballot this year.

    There might have been others; we won’t know until after the Hugo Awards ceremony when the administrators release the results for the top 15 both the current way (EPH) and the old way (First Past the Post).

  12. “In a scroll in the ground, there lived a filer. And then the pixels started.”

  13. That thread was an interesting trip in time. The discussion has really shifted in the past couple of years.

  14. @Mark: Tell me that when Zen Cho was talking about lawyers being wizards, she mentioned Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence books.

  15. That’s what I get for being away from the Internet for a day. Hits on my blog going through the roof (thanks, Mike).

    @lurkertype
    Thanks for the typo caught.

    Regarding Every Heart a Doorway, I haven’t read it yet and I may well be positively surprised, once I do.

    But the thing to remember is that the availability of children’s books was very much divided along national lines pre-1990s. So while there were some translated children’s books available (e.g. I was an eager fan of Enid Blyton as a kid), a whole lot of them were not. As a result, I’m missing many of the “universal” touchstones of anglo-american children’s books, because I either never read them or only read them when i was too old for them to make an impact. Ditto, but probably even more so, for my Mom, who grew up in the late 1940s and 1950s.

    As a kid, I knew the Oz stories mainly from the movie The Wizard of Oz and the Disney’s live-action Return to Oz movie and Alice in Wonderland mainly from the animated Disney film and a Japanese cartoon adaptation. Narnia I only encountered briefly via a cartoon adaptation and never knew it was a thing, until I got on the Internet. I know of some Germans who have read the Narnia novels, but all of them hail from majority Catholic regions. If like me, you hail from a majority Protestant region, there was no Narnia on the shelves of your library.

    I finally read Lewis Caroll’s original as a classic of literature at university. I’ve never read either Narnia or Frank Baum’s Oz books and indeed was very confused by that Neil Gaiman story in Smoke and Mirrors featuring an angry grown-up Susan.

    Besides, I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, which were extremely hostile towards fantasy of any kind and championed realistic children’s literature. Of course, there still was children’s and YA fantasy and I read my fair share of it, but my touchstones are Michael Ende, Otfried Preussler, Max Kruse, Astrid Lindgren (okay, so she is a Swede, but was widely translated), Selma Lagerlöf (another Swede, but Niels Holgersson was widely translated as well), Ellis Kraut and Tamara Ramsay. Neither of them was big on portal fantasy in the US/UK sense. Michael Ende’s Neverending Story and Astrid Lindgren’s Brothers Lionheart probably come the closest and both are quite a bit darker than Oz or Narnia or Wonderland.

    My Mom’s childhood reading was even more determined by whatever the local library and her older cousins had. She’s read Astrid Lindgren and Selma Lagerlöf and probably Tamara Ramsay and she encountered Michael Ende, Otfried Preussler, Max Kruse and Ellis Kraut later, when I was little. But her childhood reading was Magda Trott (whom I later learned wrote an early work of feminist SF), Karl May, Billy Jenkins, Emmy von Rhoden, Else Ury, provided they’d gotten over the fact she was Jewish by the 1950s. I read a lot of those authors as well, because they tended to stick around for decades.

    So Every Heart a Doorway draws on cultural touchstones that I simply don’t have in the same way US/UK readers do. Of course, it’s still possible that I will enjoy the novella anyway and indeed, I’ve liked quite a few of Seanan McGuire’s works in the past.

    As for romance in urban fantasy, the Oktober Daye and Peter Grant series do have romance (not sure about Gladstone, considering I bounced hard off the first book), but not to the same extent that e.g. Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series, Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels and Edge series (which is excellent and also strong on the worldbuilding front), Caitlin Kittredge’s Black London series, Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series or Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series do.

    In general, my preferences tend towards the romantic end of urban fantasy, though I’ve enjoyed some low to no romance series as well, but fully blown paranormal romance is often too skimpy on the worldbuilding front for me. Ditto for SF, I like SF with strong romantic elements like e.g. Rachel Bach’s Paradox trilogy, Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series or Sara Creasy’s Scarabaeus series, but much of what is marketed as SF or futuristic romance is too skimpy and inconsistent on the worldbuilding front for my tastes. I love J.D. Robb’s In Death series – near future SF crime fiction with a strong central relationship – and still think it’s the best SF series that SFF readers aren’t reading.

    Meanwhile, the majority of Hugo voters seem to prefer less romance in their SFF and have a much higher tolerance for “great worldbuilding, but none of those characters behave like any human being ever – are we sure the author isn’t a superadvanced AI?” than I have. There’s less of the second sort of SFF on the ballot than in past years, but the urban fantasy finalists in best series re still notably lower in romance than some hugely successful and still ongoing series in the subgenre.

  16. Cora, a non-SF question about German children’s literature, if I may — how well known is Lisa Tetzner’s Die schwarzen Brüder? It’s not one that’s known in English, but I’ve been watching a Japanese cartoon version from a series that adapts classics of children’s literature, so I was curious.

  17. “Cora, a non-SF question about German children’s literature, if I may — how well known is Lisa Tetzner’s Die schwarzen Brüder?”

    Used to be well-known in Sweden and we had it at home when I was a kid. Never read it though.

  18. @Cora–

    I know of some Germans who have read the Narnia novels, but all of them hail from majority Catholic regions. If like me, you hail from a majority Protestant region, there was no Narnia on the shelves of your library.

    That’s interesting, given that Lewis wasn’t Catholic.

    Ditto for SF, I like SF with strong romantic elements like e.g. Rachel Bach’s Paradox trilogy, Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series or Sara Creasy’s Scarabaeus series, but much of what is marketed as SF or futuristic romance is too skimpy and inconsistent on the worldbuilding front for my tastes.

    Yes!

    So Every Heart a Doorway draws on cultural touchstones that I simply don’t have in the same way US/UK readers do. Of course, it’s still possible that I will enjoy the novella anyway and indeed, I’ve liked quite a few of Seanan McGuire’s works in the past.

    But if you aren’t pleasantly surprised, because of not having the cultural background English-speaking readers bring to it, that’s not a weakness in the story. It would, in that case, be like complaining that curry isn’t chili.

    I love J.D. Robb’s In Death series – near future SF crime fiction with a strong central relationship – and still think it’s the best SF series that SFF readers aren’t reading.

    Yes, although I do wonder, every time it’s mentioned, what could have happened to take out Washington DC completely while still leaving the area east of it suitable for a new capital. And in the first book, I got kicked right out of the story when Dallas, who even in that first book is very aware of the legalities of her job, is thinking about where and how to arrest the killer, and thinks about arresting him on the floor of the US Senate, without ever hitting on the real reason she can’t: The Constitution protects members of the House and Senate from arrest on the floor of the House or Senate. It’s a howler of a mistake, and one a good editor would likely have caught if J. D. Robb weren’t Nora Roberts, for crying out loud. Ahem.

  19. Cora: Meanwhile, the majority of Hugo voters seem to prefer less romance in their SFF and have a much higher tolerance for “great worldbuilding, but none of those characters behave like any human being ever”

    Personally, I love sex, when I’m the one getting it — but I’m not really interested in reading about anyone else getting it, so I prefer my SFF light on the romance details. I just figure that the characters are doing all the shagging that humans normally do offscreen, which is fine with me — I’m not really interested in reading detailed, lengthy scenes about it.

  20. I do like reading about sex, but then it has to be about sex that I like. This is seldom the case. Kushiel’s Dart was an exception.

    Otherwise, no sex please, I’m swedish.

  21. That’s interesting, given that Lewis wasn’t Catholic.

    But he was quite a catholic-leaning Anglican.

    Not as much, I think, as people sometimes make out: but as he was quite conservative, but not in the distinctively Conservative Evangelical way, catholic-minded people may find it easier to embrace his ideas than others do.

  22. @James Moar

    Cora, a non-SF question about German children’s literature, if I may — how well known is Lisa Tetzner’s Die schwarzen Brüder? It’s not one that’s known in English, but I’ve been watching a Japanese cartoon version from a series that adapts classics of children’s literature, so I was curious.

    Lisa Tetzner is known and read in Germany, but she’s best remembered for the “Children of House No. 67” series and less so for her other work, including her fairytale and fantasy work. I have read Die schwarzen Brüder as a kid, but didn’t even connect it to the author of the “Children of House No. 67” series.

    Regarding Lewis, the divide between Catholic majority and Protestant majority is still very pronounced in Germany for historical reasons. If I drive about 30 kilometres south, I reach the nearest Catholic majority region and you can still tell the point where you cross a border that hasn’t existed in 200 years or so. And one thing I’ve noticed that all the Germans I’ve met who encountered the Narnia books as children grew up in Catholic majority regions. Even if Lewis wasn’t Catholic himself, his Anglicanism was probably too close to Catholicism for librarians and other gatekeepers in Luthern Protestant regions (prejudice against Catholics was still pretty strong well into my lifetime). I doubt children would have noticed or minded.

    @Lis Carey

    Yes, although I do wonder, every time it’s mentioned, what could have happened to take out Washington DC completely while still leaving the area east of it suitable for a new capital. And in the first book, I got kicked right out of the story when Dallas, who even in that first book is very aware of the legalities of her job, is thinking about where and how to arrest the killer, and thinks about arresting him on the floor of the US Senate, without ever hitting on the real reason she can’t: The Constitution protects members of the House and Senate from arrest on the floor of the House or Senate. It’s a howler of a mistake, and one a good editor would likely have caught if J. D. Robb weren’t Nora Roberts, for crying out loud. Ahem.

    I have to admit I never noticed this (and it’s been years since I read Naked in Death). Of course, I expected that serving members of the US Senate or House of Representatives have immunity from criminal prosecution, but I had no idea that they literally couldn’t be arrested while in the physical building. Here in Germany, serving members of parliament and cabinet members have immunity and cannot be arrested anywhere, unless that immunity is lifted in case of criminal charges (which happened a few times, even in recent memory, for things like drug crimes, childporn accessed via a parliamentary computer or corruption), when they could theoretically be arrested anywhere, including in the middle of the Reichstag building (never happened, as far as I know). And since the guy actually was a killer, I didn’t think that lifting his immunity would be much of an issue, once they had proof.

    But I agree that an editor should have caught that.

    Regarding sex and romance in SFF (which are not the same thing), I don’t mind sex scenes as long as they are well written, sound as if the person writing them has actually had sex before and are about the individual characters rather than a generic sex scene with the character names changed to fit the books. I also don’t like sex scenes that overwhelm the plot (after the first one or two times, we kind of get that the sex is good), which is mostly a problem in romance.

    In short, a sex scene should fit organically into the story. I don’t particularly like them, if they feel shoehorned in (sometimes a problem in romance), particularly if other parts of the plot or worldbuilding are glossed over to make room for a sex scene, e.g. the historical romance which skipped over a battle scene (all we learned was that the hero got back unharmed), but gave us a seven page uninspired sex scene. Or the goofy “let’s smear fruit juice all over each other” sex scene in a so-called futuristic romance in a dystopian setting where fruit of any kind would have been extremely rare and precious.

    On the other hand, I also find it frustrating if after a long build-up of unresolved sexual tension, the reader literally gets the bedroom door slammed in their face or – worse – the reader still has no idea if those characters are having sex or not. This occasionally happens in SFF, e.g. there was one series where the author took five books to answer the question, if the two leads were having sex (the answer was No, it turned out). Just as frustrating are characters who are having sex and declare their undying love for each other, though you have no idea why, since they have zero chemistry or connection.

  23. > “In short, a sex scene should fit organically into the story.”

    Also orgasmically, ideally.

  24. lately, I’m likening the pups to cannibals.
    There you are, enjoying your derivative western culture when one day you get invaded by a cannibal culture.
    Whose members get all upset when you complain that your kids are disappearing (we’re just doing our thing) and attack your lack of diversity and openness when you refuse to attend their backyard BBQs.

    Increasingly, the one thing that I dislike the most about their intrusion is/are:
    their willingness to attack something they demonstrably know little about
    their continuing embrace of all things commercial as the raison d’etre for almost all of their “values”.
    This (lack of commercialism) is at once both fandom’s great asset and great weakness.

  25. @Kyra, Paul: Don’t make me enter that discussion. It’ll get messy. 😉

    @steve: Apt analogy. Really captures the essence of things quite well.

  26. @Cora

    @Lis Carey
    I got kicked right out of the story when Dallas, who even in that first book is very aware of the legalities of her job, is thinking about where and how to arrest the killer, and thinks about arresting him on the floor of the US Senate, without ever hitting on the real reason she can’t: The Constitution protects members of the House and Senate from arrest on the floor of the House or Senate.

    I expected that serving members of the US Senate or House of Representatives have immunity from criminal prosecution, but I had no idea that they literally couldn’t be arrested while in the physical building.

    While as a practical matter, it is unlikely that a policeman would arrest a sitting representative or senator on the actual floor of the House or Senate but would probably wait for a more opportune place and time, the Constitution doesn’t absolutely forbid it. The Speech and Debate Clause specifically excepts cases of “treason, felony, or breach of the peace” from the immunities it grants; killing someone a felony.

    And while I couldn’t find a record of any congressman being arrested on the House or Senate floor, in 1981 Rep. Jon Hinson was arrested in the Longworth House Office Building (which is legally part of the Capitol) for sodomy in a restroom.

  27. Personally, I love sex, when I’m the one getting it — but I’m not really interested in reading about anyone else getting it, so I prefer my SFF light on the romance details

    I like there to be romance in the books I read, because I like the human contact and emotional connection, but I fell out of this sentence when it seemed to equate romance and sex. I like “romance details” because they’re about emotional connections; whether they involve sex scenes or not is not what makes them romance details.

    Sex scenes might involve romance and might not, but if the scenes advance the story and characters and are well-written, they’re fine with me. Romance, though, is a plus for me, regardless of whether there are sex scenes or not.

    I’m not usually a reader of straight-up romance, because I like it in the context of a story that’s about something more, but I wouldn’t enjoy CASABLANCA as much if it was just about letters of transit and the war effort. Or the Prydain Chronicles without the Taran/Eilonwy romance, THE STAND without the Stu/Franny romance and so on.

  28. @steve davidson: This (lack of commercialism) is at once both fandom’s great asset and great weakness. I don’t see it as a weakness; some people feel that sales are the ultimate measure, some don’t — but people will extend themselves for love or egoboo in a way they won’t for a salary (or other tangible reward — notice how the Puppies are eroding in the absence of immediate obvious triumphs).

  29. Kurt Busiek: I like “romance details” because they’re about emotional connections; whether they involve sex scenes or not is not what makes them romance details.

    To me, “romance” details describe physical attentions based on romantic attachment, or flirting, or sexual innuendo — as opposed to “relationship” details where their dialogue makes it clear that they’ve got something going on, without hitting you over the head with it.

    So maybe we’re just using two different terms for the same thing.

  30. I get tired of romance when it takes too much space with “Oh, I like A, but I also like B”. And in the next book C is added and soon the whole alphabet is used. Have a relation with all of them and get on with it!

    And no, Anita Blake is not the way how to write that.

  31. @ Hampus

    I get tired of romance when it takes too much space with “Oh, I like A, but I also like B”. And in the next book C is added and soon the whole alphabet is used. Have a relation with all of them and get on with it!

    And no, Anita Blake is not the way how to write that.

    IIRC, the first three Anita Blake novels were really entertaining until Hamilton turned those books into serialized luvfests. What a shame.

  32. I was just thinking that I really enjoyed Anita Blake at first. I read up to Obsidian Butterfly and I liked how Anita and Edward were colleagues who had absolutely no interest in having sex or a romantic relationship with each other.

    (Then, I am given to understand, the books became lycanthropic fuckfests.)

  33. Liking or disliking a book because of the presence or absence of romance strikes me as odd. Some books have romance, some don’t. Some are the better for it, some aren’t.

    If books were all the same, they’d all be much more boring. I’m quite happy with the fact that different writers do different things. (And sometimes, as with Walter Jon Williams, the same writer does different things.) 🙂

  34. Xtifr: Liking or disliking a book because of the presence or absence of romance strikes me as odd

    For me, it’s a case of not being interested in reading passionate love scenes. I don’t care whether characters in the book are involved in a relationship, or whether their dialogue makes it clear that they’re involved with each other, or if they talk about things which have happened in the history of their relationship. That’s fine.

    What pisses me off is when I’m reading a book and getting to know the characters and finding out details about the worldbuilding and enjoying the buildup of the plot — then suddenly two of the characters start pashing out and it’s described to me in excruciating detail which goes on for several pages. I know how that part works.

    Unlike everyone else in my small-town high school class, I didn’t get married before I hit 20, I had numerous relationships before I got married in my early 30s, and I’ve had several relationships since my divorce. I’ve enjoyed the romance and sex parts of those relationships, but I’m not reading this book to get more of that. What I don’t know about is the characters and the world and the plot of this book, and the insertion of romantic scenes is an unwanted interruption to me.

  35. What I don’t know about is the characters and the world and the plot of this book, and the insertion of romantic scenes is an unwanted interruption to me.

    If a sex scene interrupts the plot or characterisation or worldbuilding, it’s badly done (and quite a few of them are). A good sex scene should fit seemlessly into the book and further the plot and characterisation.

  36. @Dawn Incognito: Obsidian Butterfly is the last Blake novel I read–there was too much gratuitous sex in that one for me, and yes, I heard the same. I tried her Elven princess sex fantasy one (Merry something or other), but was bored from the start.

    I also distinguish between “romance” and “sex” (can go together but need not, and aren’t necessarily the exact same). I like sf and fantasy novels which involve great worldbuilding and great relationships (which can include romance–but can involve other types of important relationships–work, friendship, etc.). I don’t tend to like the “pure” romance (which as I understand from friends really focuses on happily ever after/true love, then it all ends) mostly because I like series and complexity in plots that are not just romance oriented.

  37. Xtifr:

    Liking or disliking a book because of the presence or absence of romance strikes me as odd.

    Not me. Some people like books with murder mysteries in them, some people like books with space travel, lots of people like lots of different things.

    Some books have romance, some don’t. Some are the better for it, some aren’t.

    Also true of books with murders in them, or the Regency, or jokes.

    If books were all the same, they’d all be much more boring.

    That’s an odd jump. Having tastes in literature does not mean wanting all books to be the same, any more than liking, say, rice pilaf means you want all meals to be pilaf, or that you will like every pilaf ever made.

    I’m quite happy with the fact that different writers do different things.

    Me too. But I’m still drawn to books that have a romance to the plot, that have good writing about food, that have scenes set on boats, that have mythology in the present day, and lots of other things. And I’m not so interested in books about boxers or Mexico or winsome girls torn between their love for a vampire and a werewolf.

    This doesn’t mean that all books with scenes set on boats will be to my taste, or that it’s impossible to write a book set in Mexico that I’ll enjoy.

    If you’re not drawn to various things you like, it must be hard to pick what book to read next, other than by grabbing the closest one and being glad someone decided to write about macroeconomics or whatever, and hoping they did so engagingly.

    JJ:

    For me, it’s a case of not being interested in reading passionate love scenes.

    These are not essential to books with romance to them. Nor are they never present in books without romance.

    What pisses me off is when I’m reading a book and getting to know the characters and finding out details about the worldbuilding and enjoying the buildup of the plot — then suddenly two of the characters start pashing out and it’s described to me in excruciating detail which goes on for several pages. I know how that part works.

    Sounds like what you don’t like is bad and/or gratuitous sex scenes.

    But, well, PRIDE & PREJUDICE is an outright romance, and there are no sex scenes in it. And plenty of books have sex scenes without romance. Some gratuitous, some not.

    What I don’t know about is the characters and the world and the plot of this book, and the insertion of romantic scenes is an unwanted interruption to me.

    Romance is a kind of interpersonal relationship, so it’s entirely possible for characters falling in love to reveal plenty about the characters and the world and the plot of the book, and that material doesn’t feel like an insertion, because it’s story, not distraction. CURSE OF CHALION and PALADIN OF SOULS have romance plots running right through the heart of them, but no explicit sex scenes and no gratuitous romance, because the romance is story, not a digression away from story.

    Romance involves characters and how the world works and plot, just as crime does, just as exploration does, just as scientific inquiry does.

    And any of those things can be written badly or gratuitously. It all depends on whether it’s written well.

  38. I was rather taken aback when I discovered that some readers of romance-as-a-genre were of the opinion that “romance” equates to “explicit sex scenes”. I think this is a context where a distinction between “presence of romance” and “presence of sex scenes” can be most clearly identified, and where its converse (i.e., an equation of the two) can be most problematic.

    Romance-as-a-genre includes lots of terminology to communicate whether a book includes sex scenes. But readers who prefer their romance with sex scenes and read fairly narrowly within that subset may (and in some cases, demonstrably do) develop an assumption that *good* romance novels must include overt sex, and will feel cheated if they read a book advertised as romance that doesn’t have any. Whereas other people will avoid reading anything advertised as romance-as-a-genre on the assumption that any book so classified includes sex scenes. Because they’ve picked up that assumption from people who have it.

  39. @Heather Rose Jones

    By a weird coincidence, I was listening to an episode of Fangirl Happy Hour today (because of their nom) where they reviewed one of your books, and that exact issue came up. To be fair I think they acknowledged it was a matter of their preferences, but it did strike me as a little odd – I know little about romance as genre but I’m aware there’s a pretty wide spectrum of no-sex-to-lots-of-sex, so why would you be surprised at where in that spectrum a particular book lands?

  40. Interestingly enough, the novel I’m currently reading has used two sex scenes so far – one short and somewhat glossed over, the second longer and detailed-not-smutty – as worldbuilding. It’s a superhero novel, and the scenes shed some light on the precautions required for sex with/between supers. I think the author missed a couple of details, but it’s a good effort.

    The narrator is a woman with superhuman strength and toughness. The toughness manifests as extra density, meaning she weighs about five times what she did as a normal human. As for strength, she can lift about 75 tons. The combination makes dating a nonpowered guy somewhat risky; despite her best efforts, she leaves obvious bruises.

    I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about her male teammates as characters. On the one hand, it’s interesting to see unpleasant heroes. One’s rich but dumb and classless, and another’s brilliant but clueless; I could readily cast any number of real-life “neckbeards” in both roles. So there’s some realism and complexity there; jerks can end up with powers and neither turn to lives of crime nor stop being jerks. On the other hand, unpleasant attitudes are unpleasant, so sometimes you wanna smack ’em around. (There’s actually a discussion about designing the women’s original uniforms to be visually distracting. Our heroine still winds up with a skintight suit, but for the same reason Superman does: their super-toughness extends just a little bit past their skin. Loose clothes get ruined in a fight.)

    On balance, I like the book so far (about 70% done). It feels like what a comic book might be if “mature content” meant neither smut nor heaps of corpses. Pluses are the thought put into developing the world and characters, minuses are the neckbeards and a depressing lack of editing, which extends not only to proofreading but also to continuity. (Simple case: woman’s shirt gets damaged, so she takes it off in pieces. Someone gives her a loaner, so she takes the shirt off – again – to change into the borrowed top.) This is one of those annoying cases where a self-published novel shows real potential but desperately needs to be polished.

  41. Kurt Busiek on April 7, 2017 at 10:44 pm said:

    Some people like books with murder mysteries in them, some people like books with space travel, lots of people like lots of different things.

    Sure. I like murder mysteries, and I like books with space travel, but I don’t insist that every book I read be a murder mystery set in outer space. Even though I like both of those things, I enjoy tons of books which have neither.

  42. Sure. I like murder mysteries, and I like books with space travel, but I don’t insist that every book I read be a murder mystery set in outer space. Even though I like both of those things, I enjoy tons of books which have neither.

    Who here has insisted that every book they read have a romance? That’s the weird leap I noted in my earlier response, and I’ll note it again.

    I’m seeing terms like “prefer” and “drawn to” and “like.” The idea of “insist” seems to be your addition, not one that describes anyone actually here. [See earlier comments re: pilaf.]

  43. I tried her Elven princess sex fantasy one (Merry something or other), but was bored from the start.

    My spouse refers to those as “My Little Pony Porn” because the male characters around for Merry to have sex with are pretty much distinguishable only by their widely varying crayon-box skin and hair color and are otherwise identical.

  44. Hampus:

    I get tired of romance when it takes too much space with “Oh, I like A, but I also like B”. And in the next book C is added and soon the whole alphabet is used. Have a relation with all of them and get on with it!

    I don’t think this is a problem specific to romance, it’s more a variation on a general problem with series: The author draws the series out forever, introducing new and increasingly more tangled storylines, instead of wrapping things up.

    On a more general note, I tend to like it when a book acknowledges sexual attraction and -desires as a part of interpersonal relationships, but I am less fond of detailed several-pages long descriptions of how various slots and tabs fit together. Or … I like it when it’s done just right, but it’s often just silly and poorly written, and on the rare case when it’s well-written it tends to overshadow the rest of the story.

  45. Kurt Busiek: And any of those things can be written badly or gratuitously. It all depends on whether it’s written well.

    Honestly, I can’t name a single SFF book with sex scene(s) I’ve read where I found the sex scene anything but a temporary interruption in the story, to be skipped over. But I’m sure that’s just my personal preference — and if an otherwise very good book has only one or two sex scenes, I just skim past them. If a book is only marginally good, a sex scene is likely to trigger a DNF from me. 🙂

  46. I can think of quite a few, e.g. The Cold Between by Elizabeth Bonesteel, where the protagonist’s one night stand early on was the plot catalyst, or the wedding night scene in the first Outlander book (I could have lived without the umpteen other sex scenes between Jamie and Claire, though) or the sex scene Fortune’s Pawn by Rachel Bach. Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax series also had some good sex scenes, even though I disliked both the male love interest as well as the increasingly contrived “We can’t be together because of reasons” plots. But though I didn’t like the main human love interest and was rooting for the insectoid alien instead, the scenes of the heroine having sex with her human love interest were well written and never gratuitious.

  47. Kurt Busiek: And any of those things can be written badly or gratuitously. It all depends on whether it’s written well.

    Honestly, I can’t name a single SFF book with sex scene(s) I’ve read where I found the sex scene anything but a temporary interruption in the story, to be skipped over.

    When I said “any of those things,” I wasn’t referring to “sex scenes” specifically, but to romance involving characters and how the world works and plot, plus crime, exploration and scientific inquiry that do the same.

    Romance is a much broader category than “sex scenes.” Even “romantic scenes” is a much broader category.

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